scholarly journals Analyzing climate change impacts on health, energy, water resources, and biodiversity sectors for effective climate change policy in South Korea

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tae Hoon Moon ◽  
Yeora Chae ◽  
Dong-Sung Lee ◽  
Dong-Hwan Kim ◽  
Hyun-gyu Kim

AbstractThis study analyzes how climate change affects the economy, society, and environment in South Korea. Then, the study explores the ways to strengthen capabilities that can alleviate climate change impacts. To find them, the study employs a system dynamics simulation method and builds a model with several sectors including the urban, rural, population, and social-environmental sectors. The study compares the size of climate change damages in rural and urban areas. The results with representative concentration path (RCP) 8.5 show that the size of climate change damage will continue to increase by 2050. The projected damages from the reduced industrial outputs in urban areas will be larger than that in rural areas. The results also show that the service sector will face stronger impacts from climate change than the manufacturing and agricultural sectors. However, the total size of damage in the rural areas will be bigger than that of the urban areas. It is because the size of reduced industrial outputs per capita in the rural areas is twice bigger than that of the urban areas. The climate change damage in the social and environmental sectors (including a loss of biodiversity and an increase in health costs) account for the largest part of the total damage. The study finally provides suggestions and policies that can improve the capabilities to reduce the climate change damages. One of the major suggestions of this study is that the increase in the climate change budget corresponding to the GDP growth can minimize the size of climate change impacts.

Author(s):  
Tigere Chagutah

Land tenure is an important variable impacting on vulnerability to climate-related disaster. Land tenure insecurity is widespread in southern Africa and manifests itself in a number of ways that accentuate vulnerability to climate change impacts. Insecure tenure is seen to heighten vulnerability against growing demand for land for residential purposes and working space in urban areas while in the rural areas insecure tenure militates against diversified livelihoods and hinders investment in appropriate technologies and uptake of sound environmental management practices. Using the focused synthesis method, this article (1) maps the intersections between land tenure insecurity and vulnerability to climate-induced disaster in southern Africa; and (2) identifies the opportunities tenure reforms hold for vulnerability reduction in a region predicted to suffer widespread impacts from climate change. The paper contends that land tenure is a critical component of the milieu of factors – economic, social, cultural, institutional, political and even psychological – that are known to shape vulnerability and determine the environment that people live in. The study finds that land tenure reforms can help to reduce vulnerability and enhance community resilience to climate change. In this regard, the article outlines how tenure reforms can help build diverse household livelihoods, improve environmental management, particularly in the rural areas, and encourage investment in robust housing and safe neighbourhoods among the urban poor – all of which are integral to the region’s response to climate change.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 726
Author(s):  
Paul Carroll ◽  
Eeva Aarrevaara

Future climate conditions need to be considered in planning for urban areas. As well as considering how new structures would best endure in the future, it is important to take into account factors that contribute to the degradation of cultural heritage buildings in the urban setting. Climate change can cause an increase in structural degradation. In this paper, a review of both what these factors are and how they are addressed by urban planners is presented. A series of inquiries into the topic was carried out on town planning personnel and those involved in cultural heritage preservation in several towns and cities in Finland and in a small number of other European countries. The target group members were asked about observed climate change impacts on cultural heritage, about present steps being taken to protect urban cultural heritage, and also their views were obtained on how climate change impacts will be emphasised in the future in this regard. The results of the inquiry demonstrate that climate change is still considered only in a limited way in urban planning, and more interaction between different bodies, both planning and heritage authorities, as well as current research on climate change impacts, is needed in the field.


Climate ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 75
Author(s):  
Kenshi Baba ◽  
Eri Amanuma ◽  
Motoko Kosugi

This study set up online virtual communities consisting of farmers and stakeholders involved in agriculture and nonfarmers living in rural areas interested in agricultural production. We conducted a deliberation within the communities for 14 days on identifying important climate change adaptation policies for 30 years later under climate change impacts with the relevant knowledge from experts. During the deliberation, after self-introduction took place including the realization of climate change impacts, the participants were provided with the expert knowledge on impacts of climate change, adaptation policies in agricultural sector and so on, then the following discussions covered issues such as the distribution of agricultural produce, insufficient successors, and support for farmers, such as impacts on crops during disasters concerning future scenarios. Attitude changes before and after deliberation were observed in terms of the pros and cons of climate change adaptation policies in agriculture and rural areas, but statistically significant differences were not observed. On the other hand, a statistically significant change was observed in some determinants of the pros and cons, such as the perceived effectiveness and goal intention. This structural change results from that the participants became aware of a different perspective through deliberation. Thus, the online deliberation process was effective to some extent in increasing knowledge and promoting deeper understanding among participants during inquiry and reasoning was deepened in the process as they listened to the opinions of others in a different position with a different idea as well as read and search for scientific findings and information provided by experts.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Itxaso Ruiz ◽  
María José Sanz

<p>Rural areas of the Mediterranean watersheds face great environmental challenges, where climate change impacts the water cycle, the soil, and biodiversity, which are often priority issues for adaptation. These, have been aggravated by historical land management practices trends. In this context, we propose Nature Based Solutions (NBS) in the form of Sustainable Land Management (SLM) actions at the watershed scale to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation while promoting other ecosystem services.</p><p>SLM actions are local adaptation practices that promote sustainable rural development. Thus, we seek the combination of several actions to achieve regional (watershed scale) more integrated approaches. With this study, we aim at proving that NBS, and thus SLM, is a successful tool for alleviating climate change impacts (i.e. water scarcity, enhanced erosion, biodiversity decline) while promoting the role of land in mitigation and enhancing biodiversity in the rural Mediterranean areas.</p><p>For this, we propose a novel conceptualization of SLM actions that moves from their local application and evaluation to the regional more systemic approaches through their combination. Results show synergies in the atmosphere, biosphere, and hydrosphere, allow for the upscaling of SLM through systemic approaches and point at direct contributions to several Sustainable Development Goals.</p>


Atmosphere ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Won-Ho Nam ◽  
Guillermo Baigorria ◽  
Eun-Mi Hong ◽  
Taegon Kim ◽  
Yong-Sang Choi ◽  
...  

Understanding long-term changes in precipitation and temperature patterns is important in the detection and characterization of climate change, as is understanding the implications of climate change when performing impact assessments. This study uses a statistically robust methodology to quantify long-, medium- and short-term changes for evaluating the degree to which climate change and urbanization have caused temporal changes in precipitation and temperature in South Korea. We sought to identify a fingerprint of changes in precipitation and temperature based on statistically significant differences at multiple-timescales. This study evaluates historical weather data during a 40-year period (1973–2012) and from 54 weather stations. Our results demonstrate that between 1993–2012, minimum and maximum temperature trends in the vicinity of urban and agricultural areas are significantly different from the two previous decades (1973–1992). The results for precipitation amounts show significant differences in urban areas. These results indicate that the climate in urbanized areas has been affected by both the heat island effect and global warming-caused climate change. The increase in the number of rainfall events in agricultural areas is highly significant, although the temporal trends for precipitation amounts showed no significant differences. Overall, the impacts of climate change and urbanization in South Korea have not been continuous over time and have been expressed locally and regionally in terms of precipitation and temperature changes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 163 ◽  
pp. 171-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Li ◽  
Ting Ren ◽  
Patrick L. Kinney ◽  
Andrew Joyner ◽  
Wei Zhang

Author(s):  
Maria Juschten ◽  
Florian Reinwald ◽  
Roswitha Weichselbaumer ◽  
Alexandra Jiricka-Pürrer

Spatial planning holds a key role in preventing or mitigating the impacts of climate change on both cities and rural areas, taking a forward-thinking and holistic approach to urban and regional development. As such, spatial planning deals with challenges occurring at different scales and across sectors. The international literature points out the need for horizontal and vertical cooperation to tackle climate change impacts. While there is abundant knowledge regarding the challenges related to climate change at different spatial levels, procedural integration into planning frameworks and practice is currently under-researched. This paper presents a novel theoretical framework that integrates various steps towards a holistic, integrative and adaptive climate proofing process. An iterative process was used for conceptual development, based on literature review followed by external feedback meetings and two workshops with the core team of planning experts responsible for exchange across federal states. By specifically addressing the challenges relating to cross-regional and cross-sectoral planning, this novel framework attempts to (i) facilitate a hierarchy of measures, (ii) maximise co-benefits for various adaptation purposes and climate change mitigation and (iii) foster the long-term institutionalisation of integrative processes across sectors, planning areas and policy levels.


2012 ◽  
Vol 111 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. C. Ben Park ◽  
David Lester

Suicide rates in 2005 in South Korea were higher in rural areas than in urban areas. Those in rural areas more often used pesticides and chemicals as a method for suicide, and there was a greater proportion of men and the elderly, both groups at higher risk for suicide in South Korea. These three factors may account for the high rural suicide rate in South Korea.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaby S. Langendijk ◽  
Diana Rechid ◽  
Daniela Jacob

<p>Urban areas are prone to climate change impacts. A transition towards sustainable and climate-resilient urban areas is relying heavily on useful, evidence-based climate information on urban scales. However, current climate data and information produced by urban or climate models are either not scale compliant for cities, or do not cover essential parameters and/or urban-rural interactions under climate change conditions. Furthermore, although e.g. the urban heat island may be better understood, other phenomena, such as moisture change, are little researched. Our research shows the potential of regional climate models, within the EURO-CORDEX framework, to provide climate projections and information on urban scales for 11km and 3km grid size. The city of Berlin is taken as a case-study. The results on the 11km spatial scale show that the regional climate models simulate a distinct difference between Berlin and its surroundings for temperature and humidity related variables. There is an increase in urban dry island conditions in Berlin towards the end of the 21st century. To gain a more detailed understanding of climate change impacts, extreme weather conditions were investigated under a 2°C global warming and further downscaled to the 3km scale. This enables the exploration of differences of the meteorological processes between the 11km and 3km scales, and the implications for urban areas and its surroundings. The overall study shows the potential of regional climate models to provide climate change information on urban scales.</p>


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